ALICE RUSSELL WINS THIS ROUND

I'm not a big fan of reggae covers of rock 'n' roll songs. It just seems too obvious. They're trying to cross over to the dorm crowd. I'm too old and cynical to fall for it. That said, they are a curiosity and some of you might slip them into a mix and see if any of you hop head friends notice.

Here we have a Led Zep cover by Alpha Blondy that, in my opinion, relies too much on the guitar. Way too much. A spacey dub version might have been good. Then there's Little Roy, doing Nirvana's "Polly". Now this Roy was definitely trying to cross over. He put out an album of all Nirvana covers. Yeah. Next up is an effective version of Nirvana's "Lithium" by La Grime Ft. Jimetta Rose. Never heard of 'em, but they showed Alpha Blondy how it should be done. The one standout of these is Nostalgia 77 and Alice Russell's version of the White Stripes "Seven Nation Army". I fucking love that one, a big part of it is Alice Russell's voice. Holiest of shit, she can belt. And the horns are cool too.

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Listen:
Alpha Blondy - Whole Lotta Love mp3 at Internet Archive
Little Roy - Polly mp3 at Internet Archive
La Grime Ft. Jimetta Rose - Litium mp3 at Internet Archive
Nostalgia 77 w/Alice Russell - Seven Nation Army (Grant Phabao Remix) mp3 at Internet Archive

STUCK IN MY HEAD: METERS EDITION

Last Saturday there was a street fair down the street. I usually avoid the street fair because it's kind of lame. Junk food, lame bands and booths selling rain gutters, insuramce and amatuerish artwork. So I went to the beach. On the way home I was across the street from the edge of the fair and I ran into Paul, a guy I went to high school with. I hadn't seen him in roughly twenty years. I knew he was into recording and engineering musicians and that he had worked with J.J. Cale amongst others. That's about all I knew. I was about to know more.

He'd just come from the record store and had a bag of LPs from the 99 cent bins (yes!). After he flipped through them telling me the merits of this producer and that studio, the band on the edge of the street fair started to play Robert Parker's"Barefootin'", a song I love. I mentioned that and was surprised that he knew the song and that the 45 original release was on Nola. I asked him who produced it, thinking I knew the answer. When he said Allen Toussaint, I thought, oh shit, this guy is good. My guess was Cosimo Matassa. (I ended up being correct.) When I mentioned Matassa, I was amazed that he knew the name and he started telling me what type of microphones Matassa had used! I was dealing with a full on fiend. Then the band that had been playing "Barefootin'" started playing J.J. Jackson's "It's Alright", another song I love, and Paul did too. Then he said "What's next, the Meters?" There was a mention of the Meter's "Cissy Strut" and the conversation continued for another hour. It was awesome reconnecting with him and finding that we had way more in common than we did in high school.

So, that was Saturday. On Sunday, I'm at the beach and right as I was walking past someone sitting on the wall, they hit the play button on their wireless speaker doohickey and "Cissy Strut" starts blasting. Consequently, for the past few days I've been on a Meters kick. Here's "Cissy Strut" and a few others. Check their version of Lee Dorsey's "Ride Your Pony". If you're familiar with Dorsey's original (which I love) and convinced that no one else could come close (as I was) you'll be amazed at the power of the Meters' version.

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Listen:
The Meters - Cissy Strut mp3 at Internet Archive
The Meters - Ride Your Pony mp3 at Internet Archive
The Meters - Look-Ka Py Py mp3 at Internet Archive
The Meters - Chicken Strut mp3 at Internet Archive
The Meters - Chug Chug Chug-A-Lug (Push n' Shove) Part 1 mp3 at Internet Archive
The Meters - Chug Chug Chug-A-Lug (Push n' Shove) Part 2 mp3 at Internet Archive

4 1/2 MINUTES OF BLISS

This version of this song. Ah, man, everything adds up. And the mix, it feels like you're in the same room hearing it live. Pick it apart. It's a near perfect song, and an alternate mix (?!). Long live the Queen.

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Listen:
Aretha Franklin - Rock Steady (alternate mix) mp3 at Plain or Pan

THE GODFATHER

Holy shit, it's summer! You know what that means: force feeding you surf music to keep me in the mood. Make no mistake, at this end it's a matter of priorities and surf music takes care of two: surf and music. I've listened to a lot of surf music and Dick Dale is still my favorite. He may not be rated by other aficionados as the best (Eddie and the Showmen are strong contenders) but he was the first, and he actually waxed up. There are other reasons he's my favorite but we don't have to go into that right now. I'll gush about his character later. There will be more Dick Dale posts this summer.

These are from his first self-released LP Surfer's Choice. He was just starting to use reverb. "Let's Go Trippin'", despite being an all-time surf classic, has no reverb at all. "Surf Beat", another song that ranks on my all-time intro list, is awesome. He starts the song and yelps something like "yeahh, lokumoa" or possibly "yeahh, look 'em over"; I've been listening to the song for decades and have never been certain of what's said. And a couple beats later, it's another mangled message. That's the part of Dick Dale that I like, His vocal delivery. Like his "Take i' off!" in ":Take It Off", and "Shake an' stomp!" in "Shake n' Stomp". He doesn't try to be pretty.

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Listen:
Dick Dale and the Del-Tones - Surf Beat mp3 at Internet Archive
Dick Dale and the Del-Tones - Take It Off mp3 at Internet Archive
Dick Dale and the Del-Tones - Shake n' Stomp mp3 at Internet Archive
Dick Dale and the Del-Tones - Let's Go Trippin' mp3 at Internet Archive

POST-MAYNARD'S ROCK

Oh man. Total flashback. I don't listen to much of Ten Years After, but every time I hear them I associate them with a particular excursion that my brothers and I and a couple friends would go on, once a week. That would be to go surf at Crystal Pier, about five miles up the coast. There wasn't anything particularly good, or different, about the surf there. It was just like the surf at the end of our street. But right next to Crystal Pier was Maynard's (above). And up the street from Maynard's was a record store. And up the block from the record store was Mr. Frostie. This was nirvana. We were young, none us yet skilled in the ways of dating (late bloomers, wallflowers) but we had everything else.

Maynard's was the reason for the weekly jaunt, for their spaghetti special which was something like $1.25. It tasted like $1.24. But when you're a teenager, coming out of the water and going straight to the side window of a bar, a bar with choppers in front of it, to order, shit, you felt legit. Gangsta gremmie. When Maynard's was no longer viable (out of business? I forget.), it was Tug's Tavern, a few blocks up the street, that took over the side window weekly specials routine. After wolfing it down at either of them, the next stop was The Wherehouse, a chain record store. That's where the Ten Years After association comes in. I distinctly remember where I was standing and where my brother was, the angle of light from the nearby window and watching him pick up Ten Years After Recorded Live the night he bought it. Serious. That mental image pops up every time I hear Ten Years After. The cuts below are from a different LP, but were what I happened to run across. This is a badass album.The intro to "Baby Won't You Let Me Rock 'n Roll You" is one of my all time favorites. I really dig that whole song. Next stop, Mr. Frostie.

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Listen:
Ten Years After - One of These Days mp3 at Internet Archive
Ten Years After - I'd Love To Change the World mp3 at Internet Archive
Ten Years After - Baby Won't You Let Me Rock 'n Roll You mp3 at Internet Archive

THIS RECORD HIJACKED MY NIGHT

I happened to hear the Mar-Keys' "Last Night" earlier and am now stuck in their groove, which is a good thing. Sometimes it can be a little repetitive, part of the package, but the thing with the Mar-Keys is that the groove becomes so consistent after a few songs, you don't want to snap out of it. So I'm not. Fucking dishes can wait.

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Listen:
The Mar-Keys - Last Night mp3 at Internet Archive
The Mar-Keys - Morning After mp3 at Internet Archive
The Mar-Keys - About Noon mp3 at Internet Archive
The Mar-Keys - Bo-Time mp3 at Internet Archive
The Mar-Keys - Grab This Thing (Part 1) mp3 at Internet Archive
The Mar-Keys - Banana Juice mp3 at Internet Archive

IT'S ALWAYS THE EARLY YEARS

This is cool. I don't know why I never bothered looking for old live footage of Bow Wow Wow. I must have at some point because I remember never being to find anything other that "I Want Candy". Anyway, looked again today and found a good one, a thirty minute set from 1982. They were surprisingly tight live back then.  I'm going back to it when I finish this. So here's that live set and below it a few stragglers.

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Listen:
Bow Wow Wow - C-30 C-60 C-90 Go! mp3 at Internet Archive
Bow Wow Wow - Go Wild In the Country mp3 at Internet Archive
Bow Wow Wow - See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang, Yeah, City All Over! Go Ape Crazy! (Side 1) mp3 at Internet Archive Go there for the song list
Bow Wow Wow - See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang, Yeah, City All Over! Go Ape Crazy! (Side 2) mp3 at Internet Archive Go there for the song list

PATCH CHORD ROCK

Sometimes I click just for the fuck of it. What the hell, I never heard it, might be good, you never know... Sometimes I find something that hits me in the right way. One listen to Silver Apples, about a minute, and I had to hear more. This is about where the asshole guy who has too many references in his collection might start spewing names like the Screamers or Suicide as comparisons and expect everyone to follow along. I'm not that guy. I'm the guy who says that if you don't know who the Screamers or Suicide are, uh, you're on the web. Figure it out. That's what I'm doing know with Silver Apples. I know I've gotta be late to someone's party, Silver Apples are probably really popular to collectors, hipsters, synth geeks or all of the above. The name does seem vaguely familiar. Regardless, these predate the Screamers and Suicide by several years. I would have loved to hear them when they were released in 1968, a couple years before synthesizers were even widely used. And it's not even a true synthesizer. It's some sort of contraption of multiple oscillators made by it's player, Simeon Coxe. Check the band bio at Wikipedia. The way they morphed from their previous band into Silver Apples is a crack up. Imagine something like "Revenge of Radio Shack".

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Listen:
Silver Apples - You And I mp3 at Internet Archive
Silver Apples - Water mp3 at Internet Archive
Silver Apples - Ruby mp3 at Internet Archive
Silver Apples - Silver Apples (first LP, streaming) at YouTube

CLARK SANTEE. ME NEITHER.

I'm not sure how I spotted my first Clark Santee video. (That's him above at a young age, when he was with the U.S. Army Signal Corp making training films.) I didn't set out to go looking at a producer/director guy who was behind the camera, but there he was at YouTube. I got sucked in by music clips from The Show, a series he was behind in 1970 airing on the two year old PBS network. It lasted 26 weeks and was aimed at teens and young adults. I never heard of it so, ho-ly shit, talk about a rabbit hole. I became fixated after seeing Amboy Dukes (shittard Ted Nugent's early band) and Bill Haley and the Comets performing on the same set! Bill Haley? In 1970?!? That part was surreal, especially juxtaposed with Sr. Shittard.

What really sucked me in was the quality of the footage. For example, the video above of Mountain. This is the best quality footage I've ever seen of them, and it's live in the studio. These are just a couple things of interest. All the compilations of The Show clips have several worthwhile performers. Rock, folk, soul, singer songwriter stuff; you name it. The rabbit hole is the Clark Santee channel at YouTube. Check his CV at IMDB. He was also behind Austin City Limits among many other things.

NOTE: When browsing his work at YouTube, click "more" at the end of the descriptions for artists, song lists and other additional info.

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Watch:
Clark Santee Video Productions at YouTube
Visit:
Clark Santee bio at Internet Movie Database

MUSIC FOR OMNIVOROUS MODS

I know that back in the day, OG mods liked some jazz, the more accessible types of jazz, but when I ran into a bunch of songs under the heading of "mod jazz", I listened to a bunch and tried to discern what made them mod jazz. To me they sounded like what I thought was soul jazz, another type of accessible jazz. I tried to figure it out before asking the internet. I gave up, and found the answer on All About Jazz. The "mod'" in the title refers to modern jazz (as opposed to "trad jazz" which meant traditional jazz). Apparently there were nine "Mod Jazz" compilations released by Kent Records between 1996 and 2018. Yeah, so I'll be keeping my eyes on the used bins. If it's like other records on the mental shopping list, it will pop up right about the time I give up looking for it. Regardless, these hit the spot. I can just imagine a dance floor filled with mods in sharp suits all hopped up on pep pills doing their thing.

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Listen:
Sharon Cash - Fever mp3 at Internet Archive
Booker T and the MGs - Soul Jam mp3 at Internet Archive
Shirley Scott - Soul Shoutin' mp3 at Internet Archive
Johnny Griffin Orchestra - Wade In the Water mp3 at Internet Archive

DIDN'T KNOW IT EXISTED THEATER

I got sucked into this last night. It's an awesome documentary, Memphis '69: The 1969 Memphis Country Blues Festival. While I wouldn't call all of the artists country blues, it's a killer lineup. It starts with Rufus Thomas backed by the Bar-Kays, doing "Walkin' the Dog". From there it goes through roughly nineteen artists including Bukka White, Sleepy John Estes, John Fahey, John D. Loudermilk, Mississippi Fred McDowell, and Johnny Winter. The quality is pretty good and the live mixes better than most from that time.

I was going to write about every cool thing about this documentary, but the list was getting too long. Nearly every performer has a great "wow" moment. Just one, for me, was seeing John D. Loudermilk sing "Tobacco Road", a song he wrote. I've heard a shitload of covers of the song, but hearing him sing it live, in his own way, was a revelation.

I've got documentary embedded below but you should really go to YouTube to view it, click on "more" under the description to reveal separate links that skip to particular performers.

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Watch:

Memphis '69: The 1969 Memphis Country Blues Festival | Full Documentary at YouTube

JUST MUTE THE ADS

It's another free movie night over at the YouTube. A bio of some sort of John Lydon. This one might be a puff piece, I've just skipped around so I can't tell. As much as Lydon can come off as a blowhard, full of himself and sometimes an asshole, he's always interesting and owns what he says.

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Watch:
The Public Image is Rotten at YouTube Mute the ads.

GOODBYE BOSSA NOVA LADY

Astrud Gilberto passed away a couple days ago. Identified mostly with bossa nova, she was the female voice on Stan Getz's "The Girl From Ipanema", the one song of hers that everybody knows. She did others. Here's a few. They may be a bit mellow for you. Tough shit, I like 'em. It's prime post-beach barbecue music. Pop them Hamm's.

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Listen:
Stan Getz With Astrud Gilberto - The Girl From Ipanema mp3 at Internet Archive
Astrud Gilberto - Corcovado mp3 at Internet Archive
Astrud Gilberto (Feat Antonio Carlos Jobim) - Agua De Beber mp3 at Internet Archive
Astrud Gilberto - All That's Left is to Say Goodbye mp3 at Internet Archive
Astrud Gilberto - Felicidade mp3 at Internet Archive

DUDE, WHERE'D YOU GET THAT JACKET?!

Yesterday I came home from the beach and decided to shake things up. My usual soundtrack for a post-beach chillazin' session is reggae, Brazilian, or maybe jazz. Yesterday I took a a blind swipe at my CDs and came up with "Return of the Grievous Angel" by Gram Parsons. It really hit the spot. I hadn't heard it in a long while. It's one of those songs that you dig or you don't. If you really dig, you're probably already familiar with the song. Fret not, there's something for you down there too. An alternate version that is awesome to hear for the first time, especially since Parsons has been dead for fifty years. If you really, really dig the song, there's an instrumental version so you can sing along and find out what a shitty singer you are. Worked for me. I can't sing for shit.

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Listen:
Gram Parsons - Return of the Grievous Angel mp3 at Internet Archive
Gram Parsons - Return of the Grievous Angel (alternate) mp3 at Internet Archive
Gram Parsons - Return of the Grievous Angel (instrumental) mp3 at Internet Archive
Gram Parsons - Ooh Las Vegas mp3 at Internet Archive

BIG HAIR THEATER

Someone with taste has been hanging around lately. The telltale sign was seeing Little Richard currently on the Boss 10 list. It was just what I needed to remind me that there's a documentary about him tonight on PBS. I'm not sure where or when it might air in other locations but I went looking and you can actually view it online on the PBS American Masters site (linked below). The leaves me off the hook for biographic background info. Suffice it to say that he was one of the elite early rockers along with Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent and Jerry Lee Lewis. Here's some of his early work to get you juiced.

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Listen:
Little Richard - Slippin' and Slidin' mp3 at Stolen Records
Little Richard - Keep-A Knockin' mp3 at The New LoFi
Little Richard - Rip It Up mp3 at Kid America Club
Little Richard - The Girl Can't Help It mp3 at Blog Rage
Little Richard - Tutti Frutti mp3 at Rocky 52
Little Richard - Long Tall Sally mp3 at Rocky 52
Little Richard - Jenny Jenny mp3 at Rocky 52
Little Richard - Lucille mp3 at Rocky 52
Little Richard - Good Golly Miss Molly mp3 at Rocky 52
Watch:
American Masters – Little Richard: King and Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll at PBS

AIN'T NO BODYWOMPERS I KNOW.

It's June, beach time is coming. The weather here in Southern California has been cooler than usual but the water is starting to warm up just in time. By warm, I'm talkin' 63°, a might cool but do-able without the Slurpee headache. (It peaks in the low 70s, mid-summer.) It reminded me that I'd bookmarked a song that I'd re-found, a song I first posted thirteen years ago, "Body Wompin'" by Jim Waller and the Deltas. It's a standard surf-type instrumental but notable for a couple reasons. One is that "body wompin'" is another term for bodysurfing. I know of no other bodysurfing themed song so it's automatically a keeper. Another reason is that the band was from Fresno, comprised of nineteen year-olds. Fresno is roughly fifty miles inland, a long haul for nineteen year olds. At least they knew to name an instrumental after a type of surfing that hadn't been mined. There's a few covers down there too. It's interesting to hear how nineteen year olds interpret familiar songs. Not too shabby.

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Listen:
Jim Waller and the Deltas - Body Wompin' mp3 at Internet Archive
Jim Waller and the Deltas - Exotic mp3 at Internet Archive
Jim Waller and the Deltas - Work Song mp3 at Internet Archive
Jim Waller and the Deltas - Church Keymp3 at Internet Archive